A Moment For Reconditioning

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I bought myself another 2nd-hand lens yesterday, the EF8-15mm f/4 L fisheye. I've been considering one for a long time, but they don't come up locally all that often.
While it works well, it is not in perfect condition; it looks like the protruding front element has made contact with one or two things over the years, as it has a few very fine scratches, and the weather seal was pretty well mangled, as is relatively common with used L series lenses.
The seals aren't protected when the lens is capped and stuffed in your bag, and they're made of a fairly soft silicone, so they're easily snagged and torn if you aren't careful.
The new RF series caps are a bit bigger and protect the seal, so I have contemplated either getting a few of those, although they're a rather tight fit on the EF lenses, or perhaps 3D printing an extra ring to attach to the EF caps to cover up the seal.
Fortunately, the weather seal is a fairly straightforward repair now I've found a ready source of affordable replacement seals. I've made this repair on several of my lenses now with good results.

Hopefully I'll have some wacky fisheye photos from this lens to share soon.

A Promise Of The Sun

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The interminable cloud broke up for a few minutes this afternoon in between showers.

You Had One Job!

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I took myself out for a walk this evening to decompress a bit.
I'd say it worked, although I did end up with sore feet!
I thought this ex-light was interesting.

2026-02-18

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A backup photo today. I got home from work utterly exhausted, fell asleep on the sofa, and nothing useful was done.

Examine The Fracture Surface

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I spent a bit of time today looking at the surfaces of a metal component that had fatigue fractured, and ended up taking some photos for the report. If I'd remembered to take the correct lens with me, I might even have posted one here, but alas I did not.
Therefore, you'll have to make do with this snackro of the fracture surface of a Matchmaker chocolate instead.

It's much tastier, and a lot less chewy than a lump of steel, I'll give it that much.

This one's a 3x magnification photo (plus a minor crop), and is a stack made up of 37 frames.

All Upside-Down And Back To Front

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Sunday Night Mood

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Defocus, attempt to recharge in time.

I've not done very much this weekend, but hopefully I've marshalled enough brain cells to be a vaguely productive member of society next week...
I did buy a nail gun in preparation for fixing the destruction that ensued as part of my re-wiring escapade last week. It turns out that a nail gun is a rather entertaining piece of equipment, and I'm wishing I bought one earlier.
I have thoroughly tested it on several chunks of scrap wood. Let's just say it's fortunate that the nails come in boxes of 2000, and not 50 😁

I also discovered that Bailey is a talented actor, and will do a very convincing impression of a dog with a dislocated shoulder if he disapproves of being cleaned of spilled ketchup. This Oscar-worthy performance will continue until cats are mentioned, upon which he will bolt for the garden, and my heart rate will slowly return to normal.

A Forest Of Snowdrops

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Back up to date...
I'm knackered after this working week. Not quite at the point of burnt out, but certainly feeling a little singed. Not exactly sure why, but it is what it is.

Remember when the sky was this colour?

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We have been "enjoying" pretty miserable weather for far too long now!
You guessed it, another backup shot.

Night Swans

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I dragged myself out for a walk tonight before heading back into work to reset an endurance test we have running.
Not a backup, for a change.

Rock / Hard Place

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Another late backup shot.
I'm running out of backups...

Mind The Closing Doors

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It's a late backup today, shot on my London trip a couple of weeks ago.

Nestled Drop

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I was absolutely knackered after work today. I flaked out on the sofa and woke myself up a couple of times with a particularly horrendous snore.
Predictably, now it's approaching midnight, I've perked up nicely and don't want to go to bed (as usual).

I've got a few daffodils on the go at the moment, so I thought I'd give them a spot of macro treatment. This one's a 4x magnification shot, un-stacked this time.

I 3D printed a grid for my Godox MF12 flashes the other night, and gave it a go here. It seems to work OK.
It's quite interesting working at this scale, even a small flash like the MF12 has the look a much larger light would have at a more normal scale, but you still need quite a lot of power.

Weapons-Grade Incompetence

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I've been intending to sort out a dodgy bit of diagonally-routed wiring in the house for at least a couple of years, but never managed to find a suitable combination of time and motivation until today.
As I chiselled out the badly routed wire, I found the workmanship was so much worse than I had expected - these two cables had been roughly joined by twisting them together, with a token few wraps of tape over the top, then the whole mess was cemented into the wall.
I'm very lucky the house didn't end up burning down from this sort of bodge.

I thought I'd channel the fire risk with the lighting on this shot before knuckling down and fixing the disaster.

Through The Dark

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This light's predecessor was a constant fixture from my childhood bedroom window, and I always rather liked it.
It was recently upgraded to this LED fixture - while it's quite a bit bigger than the old one, I'm quite pleased they've kept the classic style rather than switch it to a brutalist modern looking thing.
Energy efficiency and progress aside, I do kind of miss the comforting orange sodium glow

This Seat Is Mine

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Not the best of photos I suppose; I could have done with getting slightly higher (and probably waiting until Bailey's been trimmed), but I think it's quite cute nonetheless.
In any event, chasing a ball and licking me thoroughly was more on his mind than posing for photos, so I didn't get another chance.

Flying Head

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A bit of a busy evening tonight helping a friend with some CAD and 3D printing - this one's a 23:53 last ditch effort to capture something half-presentable.
Turns out it's quite tricky to follow the motion of a 3D printer while keeping in focus (ish)!

A few minor points notwithstanding, I'm very pleased with this printer.

Measured Response

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Seems an appropriate coda to the day, which was largely spent measuring things, thinking about measuring things, and talking about measuring things.
Not necessarily in that order.
And albeit to rather higher precision than the trusty steel rule can deliver.

It's very rare I use this lens without focus stacking, but today is one of those occasions.

Shrivel

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This one's a manually incremented focus stack of 13 shots.
This lens is pretty old, and didn't originally work on digital bodies, but a rather clever person from the Czech Republic came up with a neat little implant chip to upgrade these old Sigma lenses and keep them functional.
Rather pleasing, because it's a good lens.

Mild Murk

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Towering Edifice

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A backup photo again today, shot yesterday.